MIR Editor

See through me. See through me. The base picks up, my nerves spark and the words slow down, stretching over me. Spin, spin, sugar.

My sister’s castle has three floors and a dungeon. There’s room for Barbie to move around the pink rooms without ripping her skirt. The downside is the doors to the spiral stairs are just stickers, purple doors pasted really badly onto thin pink walls. You could run your finger over them, trace the bubbles of…

I could start with Jair. Someone disbelieving, that’s all it takes. Their boyish shoulders bitten. Suggestive circles inside their airlocked briefs. Take the band in my mouth. Thread the yarn in the lapse between drops of sweat and their cotton removed. Kisses on moist foreheads; only then will the New York Yankees baseball cap flip.

We gathered at the Chinhoyi courthouse very early in the morning, as agreed. It was the quarterly date for circuit court and our journey was considerable; out to Mhangura, a small copper mine settlement on the Great Dyke. It was still cold.

“Ah, you want to go out and explore, old fellah? Lucky you! Let me know if you see anybody out there who may want to pop in for a cup of tea.” I let him out and return to my sofa.

“Rosie Brown has cancelled her cooking demonstration. It took us years to convince her to go public with her recipes. She finally got the confidence when this blasted pandemic put a stop to that.

You’re standing in the living room with your face against the wall. “Listen,” you say, beckoning me closer. “I think there are bees in the plasterwork.” I watch your eyebrows pinch together in concentration over your smile. “I can hear them chewing to make their nests, and humming to each other.”

You develop favourites. This is my favourite wooden spoon. It has a short handle that sits well in my dry, ancient hand. The surface is worn smooth, except for that one patch of rough, knotted wood where the tree shows wild in our domestic life.

When this is over, we’ll meet. We’ll go to hug and instead we’ll pause and feel a split second of awkwardness and worry, and then finally reach for each other.

Saturday, March 14th, the messaging frenzy begins. ‘Sorry, darling, simply too big a risk,’ Ma Pru says. ‘Still happening?’ Emil, known for his spunkiness. ‘Not sure we can make it,’ a prep school friend. ‘Feel like shit, might have to pass,’ Naz, my clubbing partner.